Even as the State administration is going ahead with series of measures to bring Kerala back to normal life by lifting the last vestiges of the lockdown slapped during the Covid-19 pandemic, the pandemic is not showing any signs of coming down while the death toll keeps on increasing day by day.
To make matters worse, the over worked and tired Government doctors in Kerala are on a warpath with the administration. All Government doctors across the State observed a day’s fast on Saturday which happened to be the Gandhi Jayanti Day to press home their long standing demands.
A release issued by Veena George, the Health Minister, said that 13,217 new persons were diagnosed with Covid-19 out of the 96,835 samples tested on Saturday.
The State logged 121 deaths during the last 24 hours and this took the death toll till date to 25,303. A Government doctor confided to The Pioneer that the fear among health professionals is that the State may overtake Tamil Nadu in the death toll in another couple of months.
Tamil Nadu has lost 35,603 lives till Friday. The Health Minister’s office was silent on the Test Positivity Rate on Saturday.
Meanwhile, doctors in Government hospitals across the State, the real frontline warriors are a worried lot as their requests for appointing temporary doctors to tide over the shortage of staff was yet to find favour with the powers that be.
“Though we are over worked and exhausted, we have been denied the much needed rest and recuperation period. The risk allowance, an essential element in the service condition of doctors, which was cancelled is yet to be
restored. The Government doctors were overlooked by the administration during the pay revision exercise. Moreover, physical assaults on doctors by patients as well as their relatives are mounting by the day,” said Dr G S Vijayakrishnan, president, Kerala Government Medical Doctors Association while inaugurating the day long fast by Government doctors in front of secretariat at Thiruvananthapuram.
Senior office bearers of Indian Medical Association too joined the agitating doctors to express their solidarity with their demands. Dr Suresh, general secretary, KGMDA, said that the coming days would see the medical fraternity in the State intensifying their agitation for just causes.
The review meeting held on Saturday to take stock of the Covid-19 situation and which was presided over by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan decided to re-open the cinema theatres in the State from October 25.
More than 50 films, many of them produced by spending hundreds of crore rupees have been in the cold storage because of the lock down declared by the Government as a sequel to the pandemic.
